


what time has not touched

by Vail



Series: Giustia [4]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dark, Drama, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post DA2, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-16
Updated: 2011-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 19:00:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vail/pseuds/Vail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events that destroyed Kirkwall's Chantry, Warden Commander Faye Amell is sent to answer Knight Commander Cullen's request for aid in the rebuilding of Kirkwall. He's, uh, not too happy to see her. Neither is Viscount Ansel Hawke, but for entirely different reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seven Years

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the central fics of our universe, detailing the immediate aftermath of the Chantry going boom. Ansel Hawke "killed" Anders and sided with the Templars to become Viscount. Cullen sends a letter to Ferelden, asking King Alistair for help with the situation (Hey - a large chunk of Kirkwall's population is made of Ferelden refugees, the least the man could do is send him some help...)
> 
> When Faye arrives at the city, she's surprised to see more than one familiar face - and Ansel has some old friends of her own on the way.
> 
> Not everyone is happy with the Champion.

Seven years.

It had been seven years since Cullen had last seen Faye Amell or Alistair Theirin, but he should have figured that they'd managed to stick together even after the Blight.

Ask for help from the King, and you got the Warden Commander of Ferelden as well.

* * *

Cullen sat behind Meredith's - no, his desk now - with his head in his hands. There were stacks of paper everywhere - neatly organized into piles for complaints and support letters from civilians, damage fees from Kirkwall's Maintenance division, a message from the Divine herself - no matter how he attempted to make sense of the mess spread across the office, it seemed like the list of things he needed to deal with would never end.

"Ser, Knight Commander, there's a- a woman, feels like a _mage,_ she wants to see you-" Avery, one of the younger recruits and the only of their newest batch to survive the recent...incident, came running down the hall, Templar armor clanging with each step, and yelling his message in a hoarse voice.

Cullen didn't bother to look up, too preoccupied with his musings of tossing his armor out the window and taking a permanent vacation in sunny Rivain. Blast Meredith for leaving him with all of this. "Inform her that I'm preoccupied with some important business at the moment and that she's free to schedule a proper appointment with me at a later time."

"No Commander, you don't understand, she's-"

"Excuse me, thank you ser." A gentle but firm voice spoke up, accompanying what sounded like a soft nudge (or a shove - their armor made abominable amounts of noise either way) to Ser Avery. Cullen heard the door shut and sighed.

"Serrah, I do not appreciate you barging into my office. You might understand that recent events in Kirkwall have not made the people here look kindly upon mages, regardless of your origins."

There was a light laugh, before the mage spoke again. "So very serious, Cullen? You don't look preoccupied, you appear to be procrastinating." Cullen looked up immediately - there had been a time, many long years ago, when hearing his name said by that voice's particular inflection was a rare and precious gift that he'd treasured. Even now, he still recognized it.

"...Fa- _Amell_. Or do you prefer Warden Commander now?"

The smile fell from her face, though Faye gamely tried to continue the line of familiarity. "Faye is fine, for an old friend. I believe you were the one who once told me that things wouldn't fix themselves on their own. I'm simply here to return the favor."

"We may have been _acquaintances_ once," he stressed the word, "But it's been a long time since then. There's no need to pretend this is some grand reunion. What is it you needed, Warden Commander?" Cullen returned stiffly. He focused his gaze on his papers again, trying to calculate how thinly he would have to spread his men in order to cover everything that needed to be guarded or secured or repaired...suddenly the work on his desk seemed significantly less daunting when compared with the figure in front of it.

Faye's eyes, indigo blue as ever, went flat and cold as she slid the mask of the Warden Commander over her face. If this was what Cullen wanted - then, then fine. This was what she'd give him.

"Officially, I'm here representing both the Grey Wardens and King Alistair of Ferelden. His Majesty would send more help if he could, but Ferelden's Circle is causing a great deal of fuss now - if you remember, it was given significant if not complete independence from Chantry control after the Blight and with the recent uprisings...Alistair's doing all he can just to keep his own country from falling apart, he can't spare much to aid Kirkwall."

"I'm not entirely surprised that the King would turn to you for diplomatic aid, considering your work during the Blight, but how does this relate to the Grey Wardens?" Cullen meant no harm by the question, despite his rough tone. It was not exactly how he'd pictured spending his morning, seeing his former adolescent crush for the first time in years.

He glanced up very quickly again, still trying to appear as if he was engrossed in his work. _Maker._ She'd only grown into her looks as she grew and where before she had been pretty, now she was... beautiful, even accounting for the scars. Her dark hair was pulled back and twisted up, the short locks in the front framing her face - one that looked as if it belonged to someone older than he knew she was. 

His quick observation missed the flash of anguish that twisted across her face for a moment.

"As representative of the Grey Wardens and the one who was once in direct command of him, I am here to reconfirm that Warden Anders was an inactive member of the Order and was removed from service approximately five years ago soon after his part in the Battle of Amaranthine. Thus, the Order takes no credit or blame for his actions from 9:32 forward, including his-" Faye's voice broke for a second before she continued - "joining with the spirit Justice and the destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry. The Order has and still wishes to remain neutral in the ongoing debate between the mages and the Chantry and has no wish to associate itself with any concerns not related to darkspawn."

There was a deep inhale as Faye caught her breath from the lengthy message. Weisshaupt had been quite firm in their insistence that she declare Anders a deserter, but the thought of naming her old friend such had not sat well with her. Her improvised speech would do. "Now that my initial messages have been delivered, unless you have further use for me at this time I will take my leave and go to the Viscount. It's only recently come to my attention that I apparently share blood with Kirkwall's Champion."

After a short pause, Cullen finally rose from the desk. Faye's breath caught in her throat - Maker, it was so easy to forget small things, like how  _tall_ Cullen was, or how hard it was to look away when one could get him to focus his gaze on you. Despite the familiarity of his face, the overwhelming size of his Templar armor made her clench her fists unconsciously. It had been years since she'd left the Circle - years since Templars were a familiar rather than worrisome sight.

"You've listed all your official reasons," he said, voice deep and rich as that Orlesian drink made of _chocolat_ , "But I've yet to hear any sort of unofficial reason for your visit."

Faye smiled weakly and stepped back, heading for the door. She looked him in the eye to say her last words.

"Unofficially, I'm just here because I wanted to help someone who once meant a great deal to me. Alistair didn't have send me - I asked to come."

With that, she strode out of his office.

Cullen immediately collapsed back into his chair and groaned. Sometimes it seemed like the Maker was mocking him.

Seven years or not, he was hit with the sparkling clear revelation that it would be far too easy to fall in love with Faye Amell all over again.


	2. a family reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally posted this on FF, it was listed as a completed oneshot - and got 7 story alerts overnight. I took it as a not so subtle hint that people felt there was more to the story, and so my imagination has pretty much gone out of control since.
> 
> That said, this chapter was actually written with future events in mind, so it's a little different. It's a lengthier chapter than the last one and not much really happens – there's a lot of dialogue and monologue, I'm afraid. However, it introduces us to one of the more important characters of the story as well as some of the key issues, and hints of what's to come. To prevent any confusion, Hawke is _not aware_ of Faye and Cullen's past. Anything she says in this chapter has more to do with the aggression she expects between them (Independent mage and strict templar seem to be generic ingredients for a fight) and not because she knows about any lingering friendship/attraction.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Ansel Hawke was a happy woman.

She was powerful, she was respected, and she was  _feared._  She was Champion and Viscount of Kirkwall (They'd tried to explain that as a female, her title should be Viscount _ess_ , but Ansel decided it sounded too flimsy, too arm-candy-wife-of-the-man-in-power,) and there wasn't a man, woman or child in her city that didn't know her story.

There were many versions of it, of course – gossips did love to twist tiny bits of truth, and storytellers like her dwarven companion always found the need to add glory and subtract the gore.

There was a lot of the latter, in Ansel's real story. More than anyone actually realized.

In any case, she'd finally gotten things at Viscount's Keep organized to her liking and had just sat down in her office with a genuinely pleased sigh when a knock came on the door.

"Yes Seneschal?" she called. Ansel had little patience for the man, but until she could get new help, he was one of the more competent inhabitants of the Keep and she'd kept him around out of necessity.

"There's a woman here who has been making a nuisance of herself at the Keep for  _days_. She claims to be-"

The door was opened before the man could complete his sentence, a raven haired woman entering gracefully – or gracefully as one could while wearing heavy shoes. She was clad in a bewildering combination of armor, having replaced the feathers on the top half of her Tevinter robes with dragonbone pauldrons. The usual skimpy skirt had been exchanged for sensible, dark trousers and boots, more dragonbone apparent in the latter. The woman gave her a little smile and raised a glove-clad hand in greeting, her other, gauntleted one resting on the hilt of a very shiny sword made of some ore Ansel did not recognize.

"You might choose to inform your seneschal that I do not make  _claims_ ," the stranger said casually. "I  _stated_ that I was the Warden Commander of Ferelden and King Alistair's chosen ambassador to Kirkwall, and that it was important for me to see you. Rather than doing the sensible thing, he has prevented me from contacting you for a proper appointment and forced me to barge into your office rather rudely." She made a show of bending into a little half-bow. "It seems I am simply fated to meet all of Kirkwall's authority in this way, for which I do apologize. I'm Faye Amell. It's a pleasure to meet you, Champion."

Ansel rose from her seat, her thin lips quirking into a broad smile even as her teeth clenched tightly.  _Amell_. Did King Alistair suspect, sending her own,  _dear_  cousin to meet and assist her in rebuilding? Did he think that just because she recognized the power and importance of blood, that family would make her pause?

He was a fool if he did, and a lucky one if this was simply coincidence.

"The pleasure - and apologies - are all mine, Commander," she replied, clasping the other woman's hand in greeting. "My name is Ansel Hawke, but please. We are cousins, are we not? There should be no need for this formality." Ansel could respect Faye Amell – she was a powerful woman in her own right and certainly a figure to be feared. She was another mage who had managed to escape the Circle's hold and established herself.

However, from what she'd heard, the Commander was also something of an Andrastian and generally recognized as a do-gooder. Which had its place and purposes, of course, but unless she was a significantly better actor than Ansel thought...

She did not like this. Meredith and Orsino were finally  _gone_ , damnit, and the templars had all but told her that Kirkwall was hers. That had been a particularly gratifying moment, she had to admit. She would not –  _could_  not – allow the sudden appearance of the Hero of Ferelden to disrupt her plans.

Then again, she also could not afford to offend Ferelden or the Grey Wardens by violently slaying their ambassador-slash-commander.

...It was so much easier to deal with the weak and the mad.

* * *

Faye Amell did not like Kirkwall's Viscount. At all.

In the first place, it had been a nightmare to even meet the woman. Her seneschal was a menace and clearly needed to learn a thing or ten from Varel.

She missed Varel. And the rest of the Wardens in Amaranthine, and Vigil's Keep itself. After all this time, they'd made it home. Her home, her Keep, her Wardens.

She shook her head lightly and returned her focus to the issue at hand – the fact that there was something  _clearly wrong_  about the woman standing before her.

Ansel Hawke was not an attractive woman. Faye had rarely if ever been vain, though she maintained a certain level of self-confidence, and even she might appear to be a great beauty next to this cousin of hers. The Champion's skin was paler than even the oldest of Circle mages, reaching a point of translucency that allowed one to see the very veins that lay beneath. Her eyes were sunken in, her cheeks gaunt with bones at sharp attention, and her hair, the dull red of half-dried blood, had been twisted into a limp braid around her neck.

Even if one ignored her appearance, (it was something of a challenge to do so, but Faye had learned, at some cost, that appearances could mean very little) it was more difficult to pretend she didn't notice how utterly fake that smile was. Faye had spent the last several years dealing with sly Banns and silver-tongued Arls who tried to express their displeasure with a mage Arlessa with varying levels of subtlety. Zevran and Leliana had taught her a necessary thing or two about reading faces, and Hawke was simply not very good at lying with hers.

Ansel Hawke was clearly the sort of woman who was probably more used to frightening - or forcing - people into line, and that alone disturbed Faye a little. Should such a person really be allowed to rule what was already such a broken place?

...And how awful must a place be to earn the nickname of the _City of Chains_?

"Indeed, we are. I offer my condolences for your losses – I would have greatly liked to meet my aunt and uncle, and your twin siblings as well." She lowered her head respectfully and bit her lip to prevent herself from speaking of the things she'd heard in her week here. Kirkwallers liked their gossip, and Faye was not above using slightly less acceptable means to get the information she needed.

She'd hoped the rumors concerning the death of Carver Hawke were simply slanderous, but now that she had met Ansel herself...it was not difficult to picture the other woman abandoning her only brother to the Taint and the Deep Roads. Or killing him herself.

There were other deeds that Ansel Hawke had to answer for, if some of the tales could be believed. The slaughtering of a Dalish clan, allowing a Tevinter magister to reclaim an elven slave who had fought beside her and of course... _Anders_.

Nobody else in this city seemed to care about the fate of elves and slaves and apostate healers, so Faye would simply have to do it for them. Champion and Viscount or not, she  _would_  see Ansel Hawke atone for her actions. Faye had dealt with the consequences of her choices during the Blight, and her cousin would not escape justice simply because of the position and power she now held.

 _Justice_. How had the spirit gone so very wrong?

Ansel did not seem to notice the righteous anger that Faye was carefully withholding, and pulled out a chair for the Commander. "Your condolences are appreciated, if not necessary. I have made my peace with what has happened, and now my focus is on this city. What brings you here, cousin?"

Faye took the seat and waited for Ansel to return to her own before speaking. "Knight Commander Cullen sent a letter to King Alistair, requesting aid. I suppose it's only fair, considering half of Kirkwall's population is probably made of Ferelden refugees right now. Problem is, the incident with Kirkwall's Chantry has sparked trouble across Thedas and the King can't spare troops. I left my second at Amaranthine and came to see what I might be able to do." She clasped her hands and leaned across the desk, staring Ansel in the eye.

"The entire world has their eyes on Kirkwall right now, Champion. You and I are quite possibly two of the most influential mages outside of the Imperium – if we can set Kirkwall to rights, it may help set an example for others." Ansel gave her a steady look and fingered the ornate staff she always kept near with a frown.

"I had heard that the Hero of Ferelden was a mage, and you claim to be one, but you carry a sword and wear armor, of sorts." It was only a statement, but one tinged with all sorts of subtle accusations and questions.

Faye gritted her teeth and continued her endeavor at politeness. "I am a mage, and I am proud to be one. However, I received a rather  _unpleasant_ welcome upon my arrival in Kirkwall, and have since decided that displaying my talent in a city so recently destroyed by mages hardly seems sensible." She chose not to mention that she had learned the skills of an Arcane Warrior and thus could fight with blade and spells alike – it was only fair to keep the few advantages she had, in such unfamiliar territory, to herself. She never knew when it might come in handy.

Ansel nodded thoughtfully. There was probably more to it than that, but the Warden Commander's explanation was plausible. She would take it, for now.

"Well then. I would be grateful for your assistance, of course." Not really, but there were always necessary evils when in command. "Bringing Kirkwall to peace again is my priority right now, but there is also the issue of what to do with the Circle and the Templars."

Faye looked up sharply. "I had not heard that there were mages spared," she said stiffly. She could not help but think of what had happened in her own Circle, the demons and abominations that had run rampant and slaughtered everything dear –

"No. They were killed," Ansel confirmed. "There are, to my knowledge, only three living mages in Kirkwall right now. You and I, and a Dalish companion of mine. The question is whether or not we rebuild the Circle. The Templar Order exists because they must watch over the mages – if there is no Circle in Kirkwall, then their presence becomes...unnecessary. Surely, with the trouble brewing, the Templars are needed elsewhere?" With the Templars gone, everything would be so much  _easier_...

"...The thought of bringing in mages to rebuild the Circle after what has happened in Kirkwall is an unpleasant one," Faye admitted. "And it is true that the Templars exist because of mages, but removing their presence from Kirkwall would surely offend the Chantry?" It went unspoken that the Chantry would not want a mage Viscount in a city without their holy knights.

 _Faye_  wouldn't want to see Ansel ruling over a city without templars.

"The  _Chantry_ ," Ansel sighed. "Really, such a..." She trailed off, remembering that the other member of the room would be unhappy if she spoke poorly of their religion. "Well. Perhaps this is something for you to discuss with the Knight Commander." She tilted her head towards the sword strapped to Faye's hip. "He might prefer to speak of this situation with someone less outwardly _magic_  than I." That would work nicely, wouldn't it? Her cousin would be a perfect distraction for Knight Commander, and vice versa, and in the meantime Ansel could work on her own plans.

Faye looked unsure about the idea, but Ansel walked around the table and clapped her cousin on the shoulder. "No, I'm quite sure  _you're_ capable of reasoning with him. In the meantime, you should rest – where have you been staying?"

"I've been camping outside the city. It seemed preferable to..." Faye waved her hand in a vague gesture, trying to express everything that was Lowtown. "I am used to the outdoors anyways."

"That's nonsense, I'd be a terrible cousin if I let you sleep out there, wouldn't I? You can't even imagine the sort of people we've encountered out there. No, you must come to the estate – it belongs to the Amell family, and you are an Amell. The seneschal will give you directions and I shall expect you there when I return home tonight." Ansel said her entire piece with a perfect amount of Aveline in her voice, and Faye was left with no choice but to nod obligingly and murmur something about the Viscount's generosity. In truth, this was only to keep an eye on the Hero while she remained in Kirkwall, and to convince her that Ansel meant no harm.

As the Warden Commander left the office, her shimmering sword swinging with each step, Ansel collapsed into her chair with a heavy sigh.

She'd never expected this to be easy, but the situation had just gotten a lot more interesting.


End file.
